A new report that concludes NATO’s airstrikes in Kosovo were far less effective than the military has claimed is just one of the latest wedges to be driven between public trust and the military. It is a trend that can be checked only by more honest and open statements from military leaders.

According to Newsweek, a U.S. Air Force report shows that far fewer Serbian targets of military significance were destroyed than NATO claimed. For example, NATO claimed to have destroyed 120 Yugoslavian tanks during the 1999 bombing campaign; only 14 could be verified by ground inspections. NATO also claimed to have destroyed 220 armored personnel carriers and 450 artillery pieces; the Air Force report could confirm only 18 carriers and 20 artillery pieces being destroyed.

Even the number of air strikes conducted by the military was questioned: NATO claimed 744 confirmed air strikes (that is, strikes destroying a military target), but the investigators could only produce evidence of 58 strikes. The report concludes that while NATO did very well hitting fixed targets such as bunkers and bridges, its attacks on mobile targets — from anti-aircraft missiles to troop trucks — were often made against decoy targets (and, in at least one case, civilians).

One can understand the military’s desire to prove its actions effective. Few dispute that the air strikes — especially those over Belgrade — had significant impact on the Serbs’ eventual willingness to withdraw from Kosovo, or that those strikes hurt Yugoslavia’s ability to torture and antagonize breakaway republics. But it is apparent from the government’s own study that the military was not forthcoming about just how well it did in Kosovo.

This report coincides with a more damning story of military accountablity. Seymour Hersh in the latest issue of the New Yorker suggests that the Army indequately investigated a massacre of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers days after the ceasefire in the Persian Gulf War. Led by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the article said, the 24th Infantry Division placed itself in the way of retreating Iraqis, then attacked after the Iraqis may or may not have used relatively light arms against the Americans.

Both reports deserve a response from the Pentagon. Congress should see that they serve as the impetus for America’s armed forces to be more forthcoming with misfires and mistakes.